Today's Guest Blogger: "Mr. Pops;" aka, Uncle Lynn!

Uncle Lynn, The Pop’r King, is guesting today on Eat Your Veggies! He wants all Our Bloggy Friends to know how his little ol’ family-run company got started. So here’s Chapter One: What to Do When a Good Idea Pops into Your Head! And Don't Forget to enter this week's Great Pop'rs Giveaway!

Hi there, Blogosphere! I’m Mr. Pops; aka, Uncle Lynn, The Pop’r King. Veggie Mom has asked me to write a bit of The Pop’rs Story, and while it is hard for me to write about me, it may be an interesting story to tell. What I plan to do is publish The Pop’rs Story every once in a while, and if Veggie Mom tells me it’s interesting, I’ll keep on going. Soooooooooo...

It all started at the end of a business trip in 1992. Our family then lived in a very small town in the Southwestern part of Wisconsin. On my way home, I stopped to fill up my car (probably for about $1.25 per gallon!) and noticed a sign advertising Pop Rocks. Remember those? Since I had not yet bought the “Look what I brought home for you!” present for the three kids, this jumped out at me and I was sure the three boys (this was before Soccer Boy came along) would think they were cool–problem solved.

I bought each boy a pack or two, and headed home. I got about a mile away, and that “light bulb” you sometimes hear about went off in my head, and I wondered out loud whether Pop Rocks could be put into Popsicles. I started to giggle a bit thinking about it, and then decided I would go back to the gas station, where I bought every Pop Rock packet they had! Over the next weeks I played around with the idea, and eventually got something that actually worked. This was a little tricky, since water sets Pop Rocks to popping, but when I got it going it made a very interesting experience for my kids and their friends.

I guess I have always been a bit entrepreneurial (I once tried to make a Trivial Pursuit-like game using a school's curriculum as a fun study aid, and pretty much lost all the little bit of money we had at that time trying to figure out how to market these games, but that is another Very. LONG. Story!), so once I had a sample Pop Rocks/Popsicle product that worked, I started doing some research.

If you remember, you couldn’t just Google an answer back then, so it was a bit of a test of my resolve to find a contact at the Pop Rocks company, but eventually I did. Turns out back then Pop Rocks were marketed in North America by a company named Carbonated Candy Ventures, which was managed by a fellow named Raul. I was able to convince Raul to let me come to Pennsylvania with my sample and let him try my idea.

When we met, he was blown away by the POPPING POPSICLE I let him try, and he immediately told me I would have to meet the owners of the company so they could check it out, and see what they might want to do. Thinking I could do this all in the same trip, I was ready to go. But, the owners I needed to meet were located in Barcelona, Spain. Hmmmmmmmmm. It turned out to be quite a long business trip!

Guess this is a good place to end this chapter–but you can see the fledgling idea that formed the basis of the Whole Pop’rs Story. More to come later!

PS: Isn’t Veggie Mom doing a great job over here at Eat Your Veggies? Make sure you enter her latest Great Pop’rs Giveaway, so that you can try some of these fun and good-for-you seasonings yourself!

Thanks for Sharing!

“Mr. Pops;" aka, Uncle Lynn